


darling you're pulling on mine

by nicole_writes



Series: heartstrings verse [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Celebrity AU, F/M, YouTube, Youtuber AU, heartstrings verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 09:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20812748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicole_writes/pseuds/nicole_writes
Summary: Pike exhaled slowly. She knew what love looked like, but for a long moment, when she stole a second glance at Scanlan only to find him still watching her, she wished that she didn’t. She wished she could pretend she didn’t recognize the flames in his gaze and how it twisted her stomach because love was never easy. Love was never, ever simple.And there was sure nothing simple about Scanlan Shorthalt.





	darling you're pulling on mine

Pike knew what love looked like. She loved her grandfather, and her friends, and she had seen plenty of happy couples. She didn’t date, not really, because she was so busy with Grog and the channel and hanging out with friends that she never saw the need to. For so long, Grog and Scanlan were the only friends that she had needed and it had been good. 

But, as she sat on the rooftop lookout of Percy’s over-the-top penthouse suite surrounded by Grog, and Scanlan, and Keyleth, and Vex, and Vax, it felt more right than she could have guessed. Percy has adamantly refused to have every gathering of their odd group of friends at Scanlan’s place, even if it was bigger, because he claimed that he had had a better view. Looking out across the roof, Pike couldn’t argue with that statement.

As popular as streaming and making videos made six of the seven friends, there was no denying that Percy was cut from a different cloth with his expensive movies and family-owned record label. That didn’t dissuade him from hanging out with their motley crew instead of other A-list celebrities.

Pike loved streaming and making videos with Grog and occasionally Scanlan. First, though, Pike was a people person. She had always found it easy to read people and what they were thinking. Her friends were not immune to this scrutiny as she had seen grief and darkness in Vax’s gaze and she had been able to offer him guidance for both him and Vex’ahlia. She saw roiling anger and unchecked grief in Percy’s gaze and she saw doubt and insecurity in the bright greens of Keyleth’s eyes.

Grog was different. He carried rage with him at all times, but Pike had helped him develop a system to deal with it long ago. There was a great loss in her big friend that she wasn’t sure how to approach, so she nurtured his love and protective instincts instead and it worked. Grog was her best friend and she loved him so much. 

Scanlan, on the other hand, was hard to read. As much as she tried, he was always able to keep little things hidden from her, even if she hated him for it. He tried to seem like he wore his heart on his sleeve, but there was a guard to his charm: a barbed-wire fence of clever jokes and pretty songs built to keep people from knowing the real him. Pike tried and tried and she was pretty sure she was pretty close even if she would never fully know everything little thing about Scanlan Shorthalt. 

She had never been in love. Again, she barely dated because she had no need to, but as she looked across the roof at her friends, she saw love between them both platonically and so deeply it caused her heart to ache. 

Vax looked at Keyleth like she had hung the stars in the sky and then had ascended to rule over them all. He barely kept his eyes off of her and his admiration was easy to read as it rolled off of him with every stolen glance or whispered word. Pike knew Vax to love intensely and wildly and she saw this when he watched Keyleth and when he cast glances at his sister to check on her. 

Vex was different. She guarded her heart much more closely than her brother, but there was something about Percy, some fragment of shared trauma between them, that lowered her walls just enough that Pike could see the budding admiration and affection in her gaze. And Percy’s darkness, his grief, wavered just for a moment when he tucked his arm around Vex’s shoulders and she shifted subtly into his side. 

Pike pulled her gaze away from the warmth that sparked between Vex and Percy and let her eyes wander anywhere else so she didn’t disturb the intimacy of the moment. Her mind wandered and her eyes met Scanlan’s across their half-hearted circle of deck furniture. The corners of his eyes crinkled and his smile lifted up just the tiniest bit in one corner, but he had already been watching her as if he had been waiting for her to make eye contact. 

Pike wanted to hold eye contact, to silently question him, but the intensity of his gaze flustered her more than she cared to admit and she looked down. Scanlan was normally so good at keeping his emotions under a tight wrap, but the way he looked at her was warm and open and looked entirely too much like Vax looking at Keyleth mixed with Percy looking at Vex.

Pike exhaled slowly. She knew what love looked like, but for a long moment, when she stole a second glance at Scanlan only to find him still watching her, she wished that she didn’t. She wished she could pretend she didn’t recognize the flames in his gaze and how it twisted her stomach because love was never easy. Love was never, ever simple. 

And there was sure nothing simple about Scanlan Shorthalt.

\- ~ -

Pike pulled her headset off, still giggling over Grog’s latest antics. Next to her, Grog was frowning, but he would get over the loss soon enough. He placed his controller on the desk and rolled backwards in his chair, leaving Pike to finish closing up the stream.

They’d been playing Wrath of Sarenrae tonight, a co-op action-adventure game. Tonight’s stream had been the culmination of several weekly Sunday night streams in a progression to fight one of the major dragon bosses of the game. Grog had been so dead set on landing the finishing blow, but Pike had managed to swing her smaller, nimbler character closer than Grog’s lumbering tank build to land the last hit. The chat had gone wild–half congratulating Pike on her kill and half laughing at Grog for failing to get the kill in the first place. 

Pike closed the stream window and brought up the Major Monstahs YouTube channel. Their videos for the week were all scheduled: work out video and vlog on Monday, gaming stream VOD on Wednesday, and the monthly roast on Friday. They flipped between random vlogs or gaming videos on Friday’s normally, with the last Friday of the month always dedicated to their video series where Grog and Pike would sit and watch some of Scanlan’s videos and make fun of him. 

Pike grabbed for her phone as Grog headed into the kitchen of their shared apartment. She scrolled mindlessly through Twitter for a while, retweeting some of the cool fanart that had been drawn during the stream. She had muted her mentions for the duration of the stream, but after skimming through them, there wasn’t anything that needed her attention seriously. 

Just before she could lock her phone and head after Grog, it vibrated, the screen lighting up with a text. 

**[Scanlan]** _nice hit on the dragon. i told you speedboost was the spell to equip for this fight!!_

Pike rolled her eyes, but opened the text app. 

**[Pike]** _you’re right, let me bow to your greatness, my liege._

**[Scanlan]** _gasp, how dare you insinuate that i am more valuable than you. If anything, i shall endeavour to worship in the light of your glory for the rest of my days._

Pike blinked at the message, feeling her cheeks warm. She and Scanlan had been friends for so long that they’d built a steady teasing rapport and relationship over many, many years of friendship. Still, sometimes Scanlan would turn on the charm and it could catch her off guard, especially if it was in person. Pike was grateful that over text she could at least hide her flushes from him. 

**[Pike]** _:P i’ll tell my other clerics to make room for you._

**[Pike]** _wait we’re still on for drinks Friday right? Grog’s been talking about it all week so you’d better not cancel on us._

**[Scanlan]** _I talked to Sybil and rescheduled my Kaylie time for Saturday afternoon, so we are a go for Friday!_

Kaylie was Scanlan’s three-year-old daughter. He had shared a brief fling with Sybil and Sybil had attempted to completely conceal Kaylie’s existence from her father. Scanlan had been horrified when he’d finally found out and had been heartily channelling funds to Sybil and Kaylie since he’d found out. He had fought Sybil tooth and nail to gain the right to spend time with his little girl and they’d worked out a schedule for him to see her once a week. 

Pike tagged along with Scanlan sometimes. Kaylie was adorable and already had spunk and Pike loved her. She also loved watching Scanlan with his daughter because there was something gentle and open about him that she was able to see and appreciate. Plus, being around his daughter had opened up a vulnerable side of Scanlan that had hardly existed behind his barbed-wire charms. 

Pike was smiling blindly at her phone as she began typing out a reply to Scanlan, but Grog appeared before she could hit send on the message. 

“Hey, Pike, we gotta eat that ice cream now,” he called, his big voice booming in the room.

Pike was so startled she nearly dropped her phone, but she managed to lock it and shove it into her pocket. “Yep, coming!” she replied quickly, jumping up from her chair. 

Ice cream post-stream had been a tradition for a long time. It was their cheat-treat from their usual workouts and healthy eating. She’d gotten so wrapped up in texting Scanlan–thinking about him, her traitorous heart corrected–that she’d nearly forgotten that Grog would be waiting for her. 

Grog folded his arms and looked at her. “Something’s up,” he said. It wasn’t a question, but rather an observation.

Pike bit her lip. Grog wasn’t the most observant person, so she had to have been projecting her thoughts all across her face for him to pick it up. “Nope,” she lied through her teeth. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Pike,” Grog argued. “You’re my best buddy, why don’t you want to tell me?”

She sighed, her fingers skimming across the outside of her pocket where her conversation with Scanlan was on hold. “Grog, I love you, but you’re no good with secrets.”

He frowned, his nose scrunching up. “I’m great with secrets!”

“You told Keyleth she couldn’t come to Percy’s early because she wasn’t allowed to be early for her own surprise party.”

“One time,” he argued. 

“You told Kima that I sit on a cushion when we stream to correct the height difference.”

Grog pouted. “Pike, I swear I’m great at secrets. Scanlan thinks so! It’s why I’ve done so well with not telling you that he loves you.”

Grog’s words doused her brain in ice water. Pike blinked slowly. She played back what her big friend had just said, but the words were swimming about and not making sense. “Grog,” she breathed. “What was that last thing you just said?”

He opened his mouth to repeat it, but seemed to realize halfway through that he’d spilled a secret he wasn’t supposed to. He clammed up, his back straightening. “Nothing, it was nothing, Pike.”

Grog immediately left the room and Pike practically collapsed back into her streaming chair. She pulled out her phone and stared at her wallpaper: her and Scanlan on Grog’s shoulders, the three of them wearing shit-eating grins, but Pike and Grog were looking at the camera while Scanlan was staring at Pike. 

Sure he was a flirt, and Pike knew he had flirted with her lots, but she had just thought it was Scanlan being Scanlan. Recently, like at Percy’s, she’d started seeing more openness, but she had thought it to be just a byproduct of spending time with an adorable toddler every week. 

Scanlan loved her? No, Grog was mistaken. 

She wrung her hands together and worried her bottom lip between her teeth. Grog wasn’t the smartest guy, but he didn’t lie. He hated liars and he had never once lied to Pike. Even with a slip of the tongue, she doubted he was capable of telling her a lie. 

She felt vaguely lightheaded. Scanlan was _in love with her_ and she had no idea what to do with that information. 

She had an urge to call someone and ask for advice, but she already knew it was a bad idea. Vax would immediately say ‘I told you so’ which was something she didn’t want to hear. Keyleth would get so flustered she’d probably just hang up. Vex’s solution would probably be to sleep with him or ignore it and Pike couldn’t stomach either of those opinions. There was a whole other thing with Percy that meant she definitely couldn’t ask him. Grog was, naturally, out of the question, but that just left her with Scanlan. 

Which was her problem in the first place, so she had effectively gotten nowhere. 

“Pike?” Grog called from the other room. “Are you coming for ice cream?”

Pike inhaled slowly. She slid her phone into her pocket again and stood up. “Eat the ice cream and forget about the rest,” she whispered to herself. Louder, for Grog, she called: “Coming now!”

\- ~ -

**Pike** @thetrickfootp • Just Now

Hey Internet, it’s time for **@barbariangrog** and me to roast **@burtreynoldsesq** again and it’s a good one this month :D _youtube.com/watch?v=fFTukkN_

Pike sent out the tweet as the video went live and flopped onto her bed. She had managed to go almost the whole week without thinking of Scanlan or the bomb that Grog had accidentally dropped on Sunday night, but after rewatching to groom a video entirely about Scanlan, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. It didn’t help that Grog had been excitedly babbling all day about how excited he was to go for drinks that night. 

Her phone vibrated and she lifted it above her face to read the notification. 

**Scanlan Shorthalt** @burtreynoldsesq has tagged you in a tweet: _It’s the last Friday of the month and I am once again regaled by the wonderous **@thetrickfootp** and also **@barbariangrog #suchmockery #theroastofburtreynolds**_

Pike smiled faintly and tapped the notification. She gave the tweet a like and retweeted it with the side-eye emoji. Scanlan almost immediately liked her retweet and she put her phone down. Her hands brushed against her cheeks and she was surprised to find them warm. She rolled over onto her stomach and shoved her face into her pillow, letting out a long groan. She had no idea what was going on, but she wanted it to stop.

After almost twenty minutes of wallowing, Pike pushed herself up so that she could change into something drinks-acceptable. She hovered a hand over a loose-fitting Slayer’s Take t-shirt which she would wear with ripped jeans. At the last second, she snagged a dark purple tube top and pulled it on with the jeans. She gathered her hair up into two buns at the top of her hair and dusted some glitter along her cheekbones. She swiped on some mascara and nearly put on lip gloss before realizing that it was just drinks with Grog and Scanlan and she didn’t know why she was suddenly trying so hard. 

She slammed the lip gloss tube down and grabbed her purse. She didn’t change out of the shirt and it had nothing to do with the fact that Scanlan’s favourite colour was purple. Pike walked out into the living room of the apartment to see Grog and Scanlan sitting on the couch, laughing about something. She stumbled and nearly tripped as Scanlan looked up, catching her eye, and beamed at her. 

“Looking good, Pikey!” he complimented. The flirtatious tone of his voice was nothing new, but the teasing glint in his eyes felt more real this time somehow. 

Pike inhaled sharply and forced a smile. “Thanks, now let’s go! I need this drink.”

\- ~ -

Scanlan had entirely too much charm for his own good. He had gone to the bar to retrieve a round for the three of them almost ten minutes ago. Grog hadn’t really noticed since he was just telling some story drunkenly, but Pike could clearly see Scanlan where he stood at the bar. He was surrounded by two girls in low-cut shirts and short skirts.

Pike could see the flirty, pleasant smile on his face from across the room and it made something in her stomach boil in anger. She couldn’t help it as her eyebrows dropped into a lower position and her face scrunched into an unpleasant expression. Grog finally seemed to notice something was wrong and he cut off his story abruptly as he stared at Pike.

Pike, upon realizing Grog was staring at her, immediately dropped her gaze away from Scanlan and spun her straw through the ice cubes in her otherwise empty glass idly. Her cheeks felt hot, but she could blame it on the alcohol and her fair complexion. Grog didn’t seem to notice that she’d been glaring at Scanlan, but he just frowned as he watched her. 

Finally, after an entirely too long period of time, Scanlan returned with their drinks: Guinness for Grog, whiskey sour for Pike, and an old fashioned for himself. Unfortunately, he also returned with a lipstick print on his cheek that had only been half-wiped off. Pike saw it immediately and took a long sip of her drink as she pointedly avoided eye contact with Scanlan. 

Grog and Scanlan launched into a conversation again and Pike tried to contribute and stay active, but her gaze wandered and she saw the two girls from earlier were still giggling and looking over in Scanlan’s direction. She settled for pressing her lips together and sipping hard at her drink. 

After another painful hour, Grog saw a woman across the bar who caught his eye and excused himself from the table, leaving Pike and Scanlan in awkward silence. Pike knew Grog’s patterns well enough at this point; he wouldn’t be home tonight, much less back to the table. 

“Hey, Pike, are you okay?” Scanlan asked suddenly. 

His brows were furrowed together as he watched her. Pike’s gaze snapped to his face from the table and she took in his pursed lips and curiously twinkling brown eyes. There was a lock of curly brown hair grazing the right side of his face that had slipped from his ponytail tonight. The whites of his teeth stuck out against the deep tan of his skin, complimented by the pale purple shirt he was wearing. Pike’s breath hitched involuntarily because _sweet mother of god Scanlan was pretty_. 

She snapped her gaze to the far side of the bar and exhaled shortly. “Totally fine.”

Scanlan touched her arm lightly and PIke felt an instinctual need to rip her arm away, but she managed to force herself not to move. Scanlan’s fingers traced something along her wrist and it took her a long moment to realize he was writing something as they often did. 

L-Y-I-N-G, his fingers spelt out along her forearm. 

Pike forced her hackles to lie flat and she retracted her arm from his touch to adjust her shirt and shift in her seat. Now that Grog, her buffer, was gone, she felt like she needed to be far, far away from Scanlan and his charming, pretty smile and gentle eyes. She stood up, reaching quickly for her purse. 

“I have a video to edit for this week I just remembered. Besides, Grog’s done for the night, so I should get home.” 

She turned and headed for the door, purse and jacket draped over her arm, not even waiting to see the look on Scanlan’s face. He would obviously take her leaving as a gift and head back over to the pretty girls in the corner because no matter what Grog said, there was no way he was in love with her. 

And she didn’t love him.

\- ~ -

She was around five paces away from the bar in the dark street before Scanlan caught up to her, his hand tugging on her arm, turning her to face him.

“Pike, what did I do? You’ve been treating me like I burned you all night.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You didn’t do anything, Scanlan,” she lied. It was a half-truth really, because all he’d done was be himself and Pike was the one over-reacting. 

He sighed and scratched at his head with the hand that wasn’t holding her arm. “Can I call you an Uber at least?”

Pike shrugged. “As long as your friends back there don’t get worried about you.” The comment came out unexpectedly bitterly and Pike blamed the alcohol. She was clear-headed still, but it had given her a bit of unexpected sass. 

Scanlan stared at her. “Pike, are you jealous?”

The question caught her off-guard and she tried to laugh it off and say that no, of course, she wasn’t jealous because that would be something a girlfriend would feel, not a strictly platonic, not-at-all romantically interested friend. Instead, her voice caught because, she realized, that yes, of course, she was jealous because of course, she liked Scanlan. She probably always had. 

Scanlan’s features rippled into his charming grin. “You are!” He chuckled warmly. “Wow, and here I thought I was going to be the one jealous of all your fanboys for all eternity.”

She blinked at him. 

Scanlan tilted his head and the confident smile morphed into a shyer, almost self-conscious look. “Grog told me that he told you, but come on Pike, didn’t you already know?”

“Know what?” she asked, her voice small. 

Scanlan shifted his weight. He dropped her arm. “I’m hopelessly in love with you,” he said firmly. 

The words were barely out of his mouth before Pike leaned forward onto her toes and gripped him by the collar. She reeled him in quickly and slanted her mouth over his, kissing him hard. He tasted like whiskey and orange–something sweet and something bitter. She was about to pull away when Scanlan’s hands shot upward, sliding along her jaw as he deepened the kiss. Pike melted against him, letting one hand drift up from his collar to his shoulder and then along his back to the nape of his neck where her fingers twisted in his hair. 

After a long, breathless moment, they broke apart, but Scanlan didn’t let her move back. His eyes were closed and he let out a deep, heavy breath. 

“Tell me you’re not drunk,” he begged. 

Pike leaned forward, exhaling shakily, and pressed her forehead against his. “Just enough for courage.”

Scanlan let out a breathy laugh. “God I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first time I met you.”

She took a moment to tug at his ponytail, loosening it as she fought to find the right words. “You drive me crazy, Scanlan Shorthalt,” she settled on. 

“Good,” he replied, “because you drove me to insanity a long time ago, Pike Trickfoot.”

She kissed him again, relishing in the feeling of his warm lips against hers as his hands cradled her face. She hummed into the kiss and felt him smile as they broke apart. 

“About that Uber,” she said breathily, her gaze flickering between his eyes and his lips quickly. 

“My place or yours?” he asked, dropping her face to reach for his phone. 

“Mine’s closer,” she replied. 

“Perfect,” he said and kissed her again.

\- ~ -

Several hours later, Scanlan’s arms were hooked warmly around Pike’s waist and his face was pressed into the crook of her neck. She was running her fingers through his hair, breathing deeply.

She felt warm and safe and the bubble of emotion that had been building up slowly over years of friendship finally burst. She grazed her fingernails against his scalp and Scanlan blinked up at her sleepily. 

“I’m hopelessly in love with you too,” she breathed. 

He smiled. “I loved you first though.”

She giggled softly. “Probably.”

His fingers ran up her side and ghosted along her chest over where her heart was as he mimed playing the piano along her skin. “I have so many songs to write for you.”

She twisted, sliding so that they were level and she could kiss him again. “I love you.”

He hummed against her and when his eyes opened after the kiss ended Pike knew that his walls were down. The barbed-wire charm had been retracted and he was laying himself bare for her, literally and figuratively. 

“I love you too.”

She kissed him again and didn’t think of anything else as he rolled her on top of him and they kissed like schoolkids.

**Author's Note:**

> as promised, Pikelan and it's stupid late because I couldn't sleep but this wrote itself so it's done! as always, I love Pike and soft Scanlan.


End file.
